V. I. Lenin

Draft Of A Manifesto To The Peasantry

From The Second All-Russia Congress Of Soviets Of
      Peasants’ Deputies[1]

Written:6 December, 1917First Published:1925 inLenin
      Miscellany IV.Published according to the manuscriptSource:Lenin’sCollected
      Works, Progress Publishers, Moscow, Volume 26, 1972,
      pp. 368-373Translated:Yuri Sdobnikov and George
      Hanna, Edited by George HannaTranscription & HTML Markup:Charles
      Farrell and David WaltersOnline Version:Lenin Internet ArchiveNovember,
    2000

The Second All-Russia Peasants’ Congress ardently appeals
      to the peasantry of all the nationalities and peoples of Russia
      to devote mind and will, and the power of their numbers and
      their energy to arousing the slumberers and encouraging the
      irresolute, and from every corner of the country, from every
      village and every quarter of the large cities, to utter aloud so
      that all may hear, their weighty and decisive word at this,
      perhaps the most serious and most responsible, moment of the
      great Russian revolution.

Peasant comrades, we constitute the overwhelming majority of the
      population of our country, the vast mass of the working and
      exploited people. We are the vast mass that champions the lawful
      and just demands of the working people—first and foremost
      the demand for land—we fight all forms of oppression and
      exploitation by the landowners and capitalists.

Peasant comrades, we are the main body of our army, those who
      have suffered most the inhuman torments of more than three years
      of the war instigated by kings and capitalists; it has also
      fallen to our lot to undertake the difficult but thankful and
      honourable role of vanguard fighters— together with the
      workers—for freedom, land and peace, and for the complete
      emancipation of the working people from all oppression and
      exploitation.

Peasant comrades, consider our appeal, this manifesto issued by
      peasant deputies to the peasants of all nationalities in
      Russia. Make known our appeal in every village and in every
      cottage; discuss it at every meeting and village assembly and in
      every peasant body without exception, and make your own firm and
      unshakable decisions in the localities. For it is chiefly on
      your decisions, on the decisions of the majority of the people,
      the decisions of the peasants themselves, that the fate of our
      native land depends.

The fateful hour is approaching. The last fight is at hand. The
      whole country and all the nations of our republic are divided
      into two great camps.

One is the camp of the landowners and capitalists, the rich and
      their servitors, the state dignitaries and their friends, the
      bosses of the nation and the champions of the war.

The other is the camp of the factory workers and the working and
      exploited peasants, the poor people and their friends, the
      rank-and-file soldiers and the champions of peace, the advocates
      of a heroic, decisive and bold revolutionary struggle for peace,
      a struggle in which no mercy will be shown to the oppressors of
      the people.

The struggle between these two camps has in some parts of the
      country already assumed the acute form of open and direct civil
      war, a war of the Soviet armies against a small handful of those
      who are relying on the power of wealth and who desire to
      overthrow Soviet power, the power and government of the Soviets
      of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies.

Peasant comrades, on your weighty, firm and unshakable word much
      now depends; on it depends the cessation of this civil war; on
      it depends the possibility in Russia of peacefully transferring
      all the land to the working people without compensation; on it
      depends the possibility of a peaceful transition to
      socialism. Peasant comrades, rise to a man; give voice to your
      demands; draw upyour mandatesin every village. You
      can make yourselves heard; you can make everyone listen to you!

Peasant comrades, you must in the first place roundly condemn
      those deputies to the Second All-Russia Peasants’ Congress
      whosplit awayfrom the Congress. Condemn the
      splitters. Condemn those who are smashing the unity of the
      peasants, the unity of the working people, the unity of the
      peasants and workers. These splitters, these breakers of peasant
      unity, these deserters to the camp of the rich, to the camp of
      the landowners and capitalists have committed an outrageous
      crime. These people call themselves Socialist-Revolutionaries of
      the Right wing and the Centre, followers of Avksentyev and
      Chernov. They have betrayed the whole doctrine and programme of
      the Socialist-Revolutionaries; they have deserted to the enemies
      of socialism, to the suppressors of the revolution. They have
      broken with the faithful custodians of the doctrine, programme
      and demands of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the party of the
      internationalist Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who have
      remained loyal to the interests of the working peasantry. These
      followers of Avksentyev and Chernov have quit the Second
      All-Russia Peasants’ Congress and refused to submit to the
      decision of the majority of the peasants in order to carry out
      the will of the wealthy and the capitalists against the
      peasants, in order to hinder the cause of peace, in order to
      prevent the immediate transfer of all the land, without
      compensation, to the working people, and in order to protect the
      policy of Avksentyev, Chernov, Maslov and their like, a policy
      fatal to the peasants.

Condemn these traitors to the peasant cause. By condemning them,
      you will save many of the weak and wavering, and you will save
      Russia from insane attempts at civil war— insane, because,
      apart from shedding rivers of blood in vain, they will change
      nothing; nothing in the world can shatter the unanimous decision
      of the workers, soldiers and peasants, the decision of the
      Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and
      Soldiers’ Deputies and of the Second All-Russia Congress of
      Peasants’ Deputies.

Condemn these traitors to the peasant cause. Let every village
      express its confidence in the decisions of the two congresses,
      the Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviets and the
      Congress of Peasants’ Soviets. Let every villagerecallfrom the Constituent Assembly those deputies
      from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, or from the
      Peasants’ Soviets and institutions, who have not loudly
      proclaimed, and proved in practice, their wholehearted
      acceptance of these decisions.

Peasant comrades, you all know that opponents of the decisions
      of the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers’
      and Soldiers’ Deputies and of the Second All-
      Russia Congress of Peasants Deputies could be elected and did
      get elected to the Constituent Assembly as peasant
      representatives, onlyby fraud.These people, who often
      call themselves Socialist-Revolutionaries, actually duped the
      peasants, who did not yet know the truth about the policy of
      Avksentyev, Chernov and Maslov, a policy of making concessions
      to the landowners, compromising with the capitalists, and
      arresting members of the local peasants’ land
      committees. These Avksentyevs, Maslovs and Chernovs deceived the
      peasants, since the general lists of the Socialist-Revolutionary
      Party were colnpiled before October 17, whereas the truth was
      revealed to the whole of Russia onlyafterOctober 17.

The truth was revealed to the whole of Russia by the Second
      All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and
      Soldiers’ Deputies, held on October 25 and 26, 1917. The
      truth was further revealed by Soviet power, the Soviet
      Government, which was the first to publish the shameful secret
      treaties, the first to start a really revolutionary struggle for
      peace, the first to showin practicewhat that struggle
      should be; and it has already achieved its first success: an
      armistice on one of the fronts.

The truth was revealed by the Soviet Government when it passed
      the Decree on Land, thereby unconditionally siding with the
      peasants and eliminating all possibility of outside interference
      in the full power of the peasants in the localities.

The truth was revealed by the Second All-Russia Peasants’
      Congress, which was the first to expose to the peasants, in a
      special and detailed resolution, the shameful role played by the
      Avksentyev-Chernov Executive Committee. The congress will close
      on December 8, having begun  on November 30, 1917.

You thus see, peasant comrades, that when the lists were drawn
      up on October 17, and during the elections to the Constituent
      Assembly on November 12, the peasantsstill could nothave known the truth about land and peace, and stillcould
      notdistinguish their friends from their enemies, from the
      wolves in sheep’s clothing. You see that those
      Socialist-Revolutionaries who oppose the decisions of the Second
      All-Russia Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies
      and of the Second All-Russia Congress of Peasants’ Deputies
      can speak in the name of the peasantsonly by fraud.

Peasant comrades, do not allow blood to be shedbecause of
      this fraud!Raise your voices in determined protest against
      those who quitted the Second All-Russia Congress of
      Peasants’ Deputies. Draw up yourmandatesin every
      gubernia, in every uyezd, in every volost and in every village;
      protest against those who withdrew from the congress;publish the namesof the peasant deputies to the
      Constituent Assembly from your localities who have not accepted
      the decisions of these congresses, anddemand the
      resignationof these deputies from the Constituent
      Assembly; for it is only by deceiving the people that they can
      pretend to have been elected by them.

Peasant comrades, the Constituent Assembly must express the will
      of the people. Those who quitted the Second All-Russia Congress
      of Peasants’ Deputies, who thwarted its will, who caused a
      split among the peasants and who deserted the peasants for the
      rich, are not the representatives of the people. They are
      traitors, and there is no place for them in the Constituent
      Assembly. They do not bring peace or land to the working people,
      they bring the people the senseless and criminal rebellion of
      the rich against Soviet power. The people will not tolerate
      fraud. The people will not allow their will to be thwarted. The
      people will not hand Soviet power over to the rich. The people
      will not allow the rich to ruin the cause ofpeacethey
      uphold, or disrupt the transfer of thelandto the
      working people, immediately, without exception and without
      compensation.

The country is faced with only this alternative:

Either a civil war of the Kaledinites, the Cadets, the
      Kornilovites (and their concealed allies, the followers of
      Avksentyev, Chernov and Maslov) against Soviet power, a bloody
      war, a hopeless war for its initiators, a war t4iat will not
      deprive the Soviets of power but will only result in greater
      bitterness, greater sacrifice, greater bloodshed, greater delay
      in carrying through the great socialist reforms, and greater
      famine in the gubernias where there is no grain, or—

the
      honest recognition of the obvious truth that the opponents of
      the decisions of the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of
      Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and of the Second
      All-Russia Congress of Peasants’ Deputies could have got
      the peasants to elect them to the Constituent Assembly only by
      fraud, and that there must benew electionsfor such
      deputies.

There is no third path. Either the bloody extermination to the
      rich, the followers of Avksentyev, Chernov and Masby, or their
      consent to new elections of peasants’ deputies of the
      Constituent Assembly as soon as the opponents of the decisions
      of the two Soviet congresses, the Second All-Russia Congress of
      Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and the
      Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Peas. ants’
      Deputies, come out in the name of the peasants in the
      Constituent Assembly.

It is for you to say, peasant comrades!

It is for you to decide!

The resolute word ofallpeasants,the peasant
      mandates from all the localities,can bring peace to the
      whole country, to all the nationalities of Russia, can stop the
      civil war, can guarantee a true and genuine and not a sham
      Constituent Assembly, can expedite and facilitate the
      termination of the war by a just peace and accelerate the
      transfer of the land to the working people, can strengthen the
      alliance between the peasants and the workers and hasten the
      triumph of socialism.

It is for you to decide, peasant comrades! Long live the
      transfer of the land to the working people! Long live peace!
      Long live socialism!

The Second All-Russia Congress
      of Peasants’ Deputies

[1]Written on December 6-7 (19-20), 1917. After the members of the
      presidium of the Congress had seen the Manifesto it was read out
      on their behalf at the evening sitting of December 8 (24). At
      the insistence of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries the wording
      was toned down and in that form adopted by the Congress. On
      behalf of the Executive Committee of the All-Russia Soviet of
      Peasants’ Deputies the Manifesto was published in the
      newspaperColos Trudovogo Krestyanstva(Voice of the
      Labouring Peasantry) No. 22 of December 15 (28) under the title,
      “To the Labouring Peasants”.